


I Write Sins Not Tragedies

by thesaltybitch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Blood and Violence, Book shop meet cute, Bounty Hunters, Brother/Brother Incest, Cavalier Thor, Demon!Loki, Demon/Human Relationships, Divorced Dads, Gideon The Ninth Crossover AU, Kinda creepy kinda not, M/M, Murder Bros, Necromancer Loki, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prompt Fill, Romance, Sibling Incest, Space Pirates, Vampires, monster hunter!thor, no sad endings here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2020-08-14 04:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20186236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesaltybitch/pseuds/thesaltybitch
Summary: Space pirates. Bounty hunters. A divorced couple who find their way back to each other. Love found over tea in bookshops. Vampires.No matter what universe they're in, no matter what world, Thor and Loki will always end up together one way or another.*(aka a collection of one-shots and prompts written as warmups when i just can't seem to write my WIPs. multitudes of genres and styles. always thorki.)





	1. Space Pirates: Lockdown

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:_"space pirates trying to board a generation ship"_
> 
> This one was from my friend [Deisderium](https://twitter.com/deisderium), who was kind enough to contribute even though she doesn't even go to this ship. THANK YOU. I had SO much fun with this!
> 
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: _"space pirates trying to board a generation ship"_
> 
> This one was from my friend [Deisderium](https://twitter.com/deisderium), who was kind enough to contribute even though she doesn't even go to this ship. THANK YOU. I had SO much fun with this!
> 
> Enjoy!

Thor bared his teeth and spat on the glass at the guard, a hulking, grotesque shadow of a thing that looked like it smelled of death and piss. It just laughed at him, a cruel, guttural sound that sounded the way mildew smelled. There were four of them, one at each corner of the transfer cell, each more hideous than the last. Of all the shit hands he’d been dealt in life, at least he hadn’t been born one of these fuckers. 

Then again, he could have been born pretty, then at least that way he wouldn’t get shunted into the role of burly savage every time they ran a job. He scowled at slender visage that loped just ahead of them with the arrogant lilt of a man who had been beaten enough times to render him reckless. Loki had sly, slanted eyes and willowy limbs that lended beautifully to the role of nobleman, or slave owner, or whore when it suited him.

And he was clever. Cunning as a snake with venom to spare and ultimately the reason Thor was stuck in this godforsaken cell, gagging over the stench of it’s previous occupants. He kicked at the wall and was rewarded with a violent shock that made his teeth chatter. 

“Special delivery,” Loki drawled as they rolled to an abrupt stop. 

A severe looking woman with tattoos that crawled along every inch of her face appeared on a screen by the doors. Thor squinted to see her. She looked like she might spit acid. 

“What, just one? On an off day? Fuck off.” 

She had a thick accent that made the curse sound like _"fawkhov."_

“He’s wanted on eight systems,” Loki said easily. “But if you’re too busy I’ll take him to the _Intrepid_ where I’m sure Fandral will be most happy to receive him.”

The woman’s face flickered at that, glancing over at him. Thor stuck his tongue out and made an obscene gesture with his hand for good measure. She looked back at his brother sharply.

“Which systems?” she demanded.

Loki listed them off boredly. Thor rolled his eyes and shifted his weight back and forth. He’d been stuck in this cell for too long already and Loki was purposefully taking his _sweet_ time, which Thor knew was his way of paying it forward for jettisoning him out an airlock a few weeks back. Frost giants didn’t breathe like Asgardians did and while Loki was only half, it didn’t hurt him to float in space for a couple hours. 

Thor had laughed for hours and he still had stitches from where Loki had pierced him through the shoulder with a shard of ice when he got back. Volstagg could have simply glued him back together with a med pak but he was a little old school and preferred to take the time with stitches so he could scold them both. His words, as always, fell on deaf ears.

The piercing shriek of neglected machinery cut through his thoughts as the doors ahead began to roll back. The floor moved beneath him, causing him to stumble and very nearly electrocute himself against the cell walls a second time. 

“Burn in hell, wretch!” he spat for good measure as the guards rolled him through. 

Loki’s eyes crinkled mirthfully, goading him on from behind the half-skull bandana wrapped around the bottom half of his face. Thor growled at him as he raised a slender arm in a sloppy salute and fell into step behind them. The doors eased shut. 

Thor was ready when they came to an abrupt stop inside and this time he wasn’t surprised when the guards came to a halt.

This was the hard part. Getting past weigh in. Some ships had newer technology that allowed them to see past cloaking devices, but many didn’t. He trusted Val’s research more than most, but not enough to be confident in it. She said they would be fine.

He held his breath as sensors scanned the cell. 

There was a loud horn and then a pause. One of the guards snuffled wetly to his right. Thor took note of their surroundings with a surreptitious sweep of his eyes. They’d learned, often painfully, exactly how important it was to understand the dynamic nature of an exit strategy. Nothing was certain, but then again, life as a pirate rarely was. 

More noise. Much more as the doors opened to allow them access to the ship. Thor felt his muscles tense, pulling him tight across his bones like a bowstring. He shifted forward onto the balls of his feet.

All hell broke loose. 

The guards around him fell first, thick bodies collapsing thunderously against the metal floors, blood seeming to burst forth from their throats without reason. If you knew what to look for you could see them; flickers, shadows against shadows and light against light as they slipped among the chaos and confusion—today the crew played servants of death and his reapers.

With a twist of his wrist Thor let the false manacles fell to the base of the cell as the door hissed open at Loki’s command, long elegant fingers dragging languidly across the keypad in no particular hurry. He stepped into the cell on elfin feet, light as a feather, a fire burning in the wicked slant of his emerald eyes, and when he tore the skull bandana from his face, his lips were twisted in a savage smile.

It lit a fire deep in Thor’s gut, igniting his limbs from within. Loki had always loved the danger and, even more so, the satisfaction of triumph against all odds—a drug to those who danced on the edge of madness.

Thor stepped to meet him, chest to chest, sliding his fingers into the midnight of his brother’s long hair, winding through the curls and holding him fast.

Another day. Another paltry victory that would never be enough. Loki had never been a creature of satisfaction and Thor had never once thought to deny him. What his brother wanted, he got. 

“Loki.”

The name fell from his lips as he let the fire consume him, capturing his brother’s lips between his teeth with a feral growl and savoring the way Loki’s body rose to meet him. 

And all around them, chaos reigned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and work are inspired by _Maul: Lockdown_ by Joe Schreiber. If you haven't read it, I HIGHLY recommend it. Most badass book I've ever read.
> 
> To send me more prompts or follow my descent into madness I can be found on [twitter](https://twitter.com/saltierbitch).


	2. Bounty Hunters: Scum and Villainy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: _"space bounty hunter with a stand off in a cantina"_
> 
> A hella fun prompt from the one and only [Cuppy](https://twitter.com/thundersnake69). I do love me some bounty hunters and I especially love them in sci-fi cantinas. 
> 
> This doesn't technically take place in space which I didn't realize until now, buuuuut I hope it will suffice?? 
> 
> Enjoy!

Midgard. Minn-erva always said it was a real shithole but Thor didn’t realize just how right she was until he was balls deep in human ineptitude. Even then he couldn’t help but find mortal creatures endearing. They were cheerful and optimistic, despite the fact they lived about as long as it took to piss off a bilgesnipe (hint: about .0000000002 seconds). 

The thing was, he had never intended to come back to Midgard. He had made enough of a name for himself that he could afford to pick and choose his jobs based on convenience and whether or not he felt like getting up that day. 

And he certainly got out of bed for the price on this mark. 

This one had come through anonymously, as most high-price bids did, but when the reward was three million inter-realm credits and one (1) partial favor every hunter across the nine realms was getting out of bed. Whatever this person had done, they’d clearly crossed all the wrong authorities in the process. Multiple times.

He descended into the depths of a rather grubby looking cantina, the steps to which had been worn down by decades of constant traffic, leaving them uneven and almost slick in places. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim lighting and when they did it wasn’t much help. An odd assortment of half-functional string lights, vintage lamps were crammed along the walls and ceilings, looking wildly out of place next to the bioluminescent lava tanks from off world

They were bustling, too. A haggard looking bartender was spinning out drinks faster than you could scream “whiskey neat,” his four arms a blur of motion. Android and human servers alike slid expertly through the throngs of people and tightly packed tables with plates of food. 

Thor slid into a corner booth that sat in the back at the peak of the sloped floor, offering something of a vantage point. He would be there for quite a while and indeed, he was four beers into his tab when the lava tanks shifted from their easy orange glow into a cooler, nighttime purple. 

It was about that time he began to wonder if he’d been given bad intel—patience was the name of the game here, but he hadn’t even seen another hunter. This place should have been crawling with them and he hadn’t even seen so much as the edge of a boot. 

“Hey there, handsome,” a voice like silk cut through the din, soft as rose petals. “You look a little lonely back here by yourself.”

“Quite by design, love,” Thor said dryly, taking a large sip from the heavy tankard he’d just gotten refilled. “I’m not good company tonight. Move along.”

“It’s not often I get turned down,” she replied lightly. 

When she remained there, the long lines of her hands hanging delicately against the soft velvet of her garb, Thor sighed. He looked back up at her and frowned deeply. Deep set eyes, fine cheekbones, and a sharp jaw that tilted just so in a subtle display of confidence. 

“You,” he growled.

She had a laugh like gentle rain and she slid into the booth next to him. “Am I to take that as my invitation? I’m used to savages, I speak all twelve dialects, if it please you.”

“Not two minutes and I already tire of your games, _Loki_,” Thor said. 

“You know, this would have been much funnier if you’d simply played along,” she complained lightly, leaning in to press soft lips to his neck. “My dear brother, what _are_ you doing here?”

The heat was intoxicating. Thor shrugged her away.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Oh, but it is when I’m here for the same thing,” Loki smirked. 

She seemed to shimmer in the dim lighting and suddenly the beautiful woman was gone, replaced by a more familiar heavy brow, quick eyes, and a sharp mouth. It was Thor’s favorite form of his, second only to the towering azure of his Jotunn heritage. 

It didn’t make him any less annoyed. 

“What makes you think we have the same business?”

“My stunning intellect,” Loki replied easily and brought a boot up to brace against the table as he leaned back and signaled the waiter. “And you’ve been slacking.”

A nearby table erupted into laughter and feedback squealed from the tiny stage on the other side of the room as a band prepped to begin a live set. 

“Enlighten me,” Thor said. 

“Oh, you absolutely spoil me,” Loki leaned forward and placed sharp elbows on the worn wood of the table, delighted at the chance to show off. “The table to your left—the loud cunts with the pink faces—they’ve been tossing back water all night. Just beyond them, the woman in the vintage bomber has been reading the same page in her romance novel for, hmm,” he checked his watch. “The last hour or so. And the ginger twat at the bar? He’s been shoving noxious fern into his face since you got here.”

“Hell of a glamour,” Thor noted appreciatively, not particularly concerned. “Remind me why I should care about any of this?”

Loki eyed him like a predator might his prey and let the question hang in the air. Thor contented himself to look around the room. Taking his brother seriously was as fatal a mistake as any, almost as fatally stupid as letting him sit next to him. Thor knew there were a thousand little lies behind that treacherous face, a tangled web of Loki’s own making that frequently cut him off at the knees as much as any one of his intended targets. 

And although Thor was already resigned to a death brought on by his own kin, but he wasn’t quite prepared for it to be today. He’d seen a shadow flicker in by the doorway not five minutes ago and he was going to get that reward.

They needed to draw attention.

He slid a hand down to the weapon strapped to his thigh and released the safety. 

“Saw that, did you?” Loki murmured.

“I have a proposition for you,” Thor said, sliding an arm around his brother’s slender waist to pull him close. “For old time’s sake.”

“Oh, _brother,_ I thought you’d never ask,” Loki’s lips formed a wicked slash across his face. 

Thor kicked the table away with a screech of metal against concrete as Loki climbed onto his lap and kissed him deeply, slender fingers pressing harshly into the sides of his face. Thor could feel the edges of no less than three blades pressing into his thighs. 

“Oh god, you scoundrel,” Loki moaned loudly, his voice going pitchy as he rolled against him and threw his head back. “You beast!”

“Don’t overdo it, dumbass,” Thor murmured in amusement, wrapping an arm around him and pulling his face down into his neck so he could see over slender shoulders.

Sure enough, the entire cantina seemed to have turned their eyes on them, some looking scandalized, others jealous. Most importantly, it threw off the rest of the hunters in the room, distracted for the slightest instant and therein already forfeiting their bounty.

“You wanted their attention did you not?” Loki purred, mouthing at his neck and jaw. “Oh, but I have _missed_ you. Tell me you’re sticking around after this.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh relax,” Loki nipped at his ear and pressed the hilt of a blade to his back. “I’m two steps ahead of you.”

Movement flickered to the right. Their mark was on the move. 

“Now.” 

Loki arched back like a dancer, a single, fluid movement as he fell away from Thor’s chest, his blades slicing through the air. Thor vaulted to his feet as he did, blasters in hand, his eyes trained on the shimmering movement by the entrance to the kitchens. 

The cantina erupted into chaos. 

Screams and terror flooded the air as customers dove out of the way, breaking glass and toppling tables. The hunters Loki had pointed out earlier weren’t a second behind them, armed in the blink of an eye and calm under pressure. 

Blood was dripping down an invisible mass, the hilt of Loki’s dagger at its source. His brother had been said to have eyes in the back of his head and this was one of many reasons why—he’d thrown the weapons practically blind. 

It was a dirty scuffle after that, but their mark was no match for the two of them. Loki got to him first, a quick punch to the cloaking power source making it flicker and die. The noise died suddenly as the room came to a standstill.

“Don’t!” Thor shouted, spinning to face the others. “We’re all professionals, here. He’s ours, so let’s not make this any more of a mess than it is, shall we? You can leave or I’ll shoot you.”

“Piss off, Odinson,” one of the pink-faced hunters from earlier spat. “You’re mad if you think we’re walking away from a bounty like that.”

“And you’re just stupid,” Thor trained one blaster on him, the other still aimed at the woman in the bomber jacket. “Go on, I’ll give you three seconds. One—”

The redhead pushed his plate of noxious fern away and finally stood up. 

“—Two—”

The woman looked like she was considering his offer. 

“I really had hoped this would be more exciting,” Loki said boredly. “Hurry up, brother.”

“Three.”

Five shots. Five kills. Bodies slumped to the floor.

“You’ll never get away with this!”

Thor turned and holstered his blasters and walked over to where Loki held their mark by the hair, a knife at his throat. He crouched and grinned at him. 

“Oh, I think we just did.”

His grin faded, however, as the mark grinned back shifted and shimmered and then melted away into the air. 

“Goddamnmotherfucking _clones!_” Loki spat angrily, throwing his hands into the air and stalking over to retrieve his other knives where they’d fallen. “Ymir’s _balls,_ I should have known it was too easy.”

“Well, at least we eliminated some of the competition,” Thor said mildly, watching the blood on the floor shimmer and fade away as well. 

“You would see it that way,” Loki snarled, already picking through the dead and pocketing what valuables he could find. “You insufferable, optimistic, no-good, piece of—”

Thor rose swiftly and went to him, spinning him around and kissing him deeply, catching him off guard. Loki stiffened at first and then softened into him, returning the kiss with equal fervor, his looting quite forgotten. 

“Does this mean you’re sticking around?” he asked breathlessly, even as his fingers made quick work of the clasps of Thor’s vest. 

Thor made a noncommittal sound in his throat. He was expecting it when Loki scowled and jumped on him, his long legs wrapping around his waist with iron strength. Long fingers caught his face as they kissed again and Loki’s whine of desperation poured into him. 

“I missed you,” he breathed. 

“Of course you did,” Loki panted. “Now shut up and fuck me.”

Thor set him on the dirty bar top and did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/saltierbitch).


	3. Divorced Dads: Very, Very Extraordinary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: _“SINGLE FATHER AU OR DIVORCED DADS AU. just a scene with them getting back together or getting together. a child is involved.”_
> 
> This angsty prompt comes from [Snuzz](https://twitter.com/spacerenegades). I had to shift gears hard for this and it turned out MUCH angstier than I thought it was going to. However, it is also very soft. Happy endings only.
> 
> Enjoy!

Weekends. 

They were for parties and barbeques and floating the river until no amount of sunscreen could save you from the sunburn that would inevitably turn into sun spots when you were older. Saturdays were for lazing about on the futon your husband refused to throw away and Sundays were for pancake breakfasts and walks to the park across the street. 

Thor used to love weekends. 

Now he just closed his eyes and wished they would fly past without him noticing. 

Astrid was at her summer camp this week which meant he was left alone—all by himself in the skeleton remains of what had once been theirs together. His friends told him he lucked out in the divorce, that it was a stroke of good fortune that Loki had been the one to move out, but it sure as hell didn’t feel that way. All Thor knew was that he had come back after work one day to find the house bereft of the things that made it a home. 

It felt like a kick in the face after all they’d been through, he expected more of a fight. He slept on the floor of the guest bedroom for months after Loki left, unable to walk into the room without wanting to cry, or worse, destroy it all.

That had been a year ago.

The wind kicked up around him and he tucked his chin into his scarf to block the chill. Seattle was beautiful this time of year, a perpetual state of aesthetic gloom with the never ending drizzle of rain and overcast skies. In the distance he could see the sign for the coffee shop, black with neon lettering, bright against the bleak of it all. 

Thor checked his watch and felt his steps slow even more. They tried to be good parents despite their animosity, they really did. Of all the things they hated about each other, they could at least do their best to put it aside for her. 

And Astrid wasn’t stupid, what with her sharp ears and clever mind, Thor had every reason to suspect she knew more about their situation than she let on. For that his heart ached, although it ached anyway, what was left of it after Loki left with it in his hands. Even now he felt the hole in his chest expand like it might swallow him in the middle of the street. 

He might have gone willingly if it meant he didn’t have to exist like this. 

The smell of decaying leaves and rain permeated the air as he stopped at the pedestrian crossing on Summit Avenue, shoving his hands in his pockets. He let the light cycle twice, staring at the little walking icon across the street as it flashed and wondering what might happen if he just turned around and walked away. And then what if he kept walking? Past the market, past the preschool Astrid had gone to, past the fountain, right off the bridge and into the water. 

He didn’t want to die, that wasn’t it. He just wanted to be alone somewhere new, somewhere that he wasn’t constantly followed by the memories they’d made all over this city. At least in the water he might not see it all and he could lie there, weightless, floating until the lights on the ferris wheel came on. 

The coffee shop was warm, though. To his surprise it didn’t hurt so much to be there, surrounded by the familiar walls and the smell of coffee. He could see the table where he’d quietly asked his brother to marry him and Loki, his beautiful eyes shining with emotion, had choked out his answer: _yes_. 

Thor remembered it like it was yesterday, all the way down to the chipped green nail polish and the soft scent of the cologne Loki wore at the time. He swallowed hard. The memory of their divorce was just as fresh.

The barista gave him a sweet smile as she took his order. A latte for himself, an americano for Loki. He hoped his brother still took his coffee black. He chose a table in the corner by the windows, far away from the memories of the past.

They were supposed to pick up Astrid later today and then Loki would get her for the weeks leading up to the school year. It was only fair. Thor kept her for the school year for convenience as Loki had moved out of town. 

Still, they only ever met with regards to custody, nothing more. He didn’t know what his brother could possibly want with him today. 

Shadows stretched along the street in the vague light of the evening. Thor’s heart sped up and slowed with each new person that walked past the windows, waiting…

...just waiting.

Loki managed to slip inside without him noticing. Thor looked up and there he was, standing in the doorway looking like the breath of wind on a mountain top in the fall. Even after all this time he stole the air from Thor’s lungs like it belonged to him and him alone. 

Thor waved tentatively to get his attention. He looked so sweet, bundled in an oversized sweater with a thick, plaid scarf wrapped around his neck, standing in a pair of worn boots that Thor knew all too well. His hair was pulled into a loose, braided crown about his head today. All he needed were a couple of flowers nestled within the dark waves and he could have been the cover of a fairytale book. 

Loki made his way over and Thor felt his heart thump in his chest, too unwieldy and loud for such a delicate situation. 

“Hey,” Loki said softly, his eyes falling to the coffee that sat waiting for him. “Is that for me?”

Thor swallowed hard and nodded. “Americano, no room.”

He smiled a little then, dark lashes skimming the tops of cheeks still pink from his commute.

“You remembered.” 

“Of course I did,” Thor said, a little indignant. 

As if he would forget.

Loki looked at him then and Thor could see the anxiousness in his face by the tension by his eyes and the faintest draw to his brow. They sat down.

“Thanks for meeting me,” Loki said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. 

Thor smiled at him. “I’m glad I came.”

“I’m glad you did too,” Loki said.

He fidgeted a bit then and his gaze dropped to examine his fingernails. They were clean today, but manicured. Any other time Thor wouldn’t have had a problem reaching across the table and taking his hand.

“I was wondering if you might have a room free at the house?” Loki said eventually, his voice wavering a little. 

Thor’s eyes snapped to meet his brother’s as his heart sped up yet again. 

“I mean, it’s completely up to you, I know I left and it’s yours and I don’t want to step on any toes,” Loki continued, speaking a little faster now. “I just thought maybe—if you’re not seeing anybody, you know—I thought, maybe—”

“Yes,” Thor said immediately.

Loki stared hard at the table, drawing circles with an index finger. “Only if you have the room, of course.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course there’s room,” Thor said, a lump rising in his throat. 

“I figured since school starts soon it would be nice for Astrid if I was here,” Loki sniffed, still staring at the table. “And it would be more convenient for you—”

Thor could hear him talking but all he needed to know was that his brother wanted to come home. 

“Loki.” 

“—and she can stay in her room—”

“Loki,” Thor repeated firmly, reaching across the table and stopped him from scratching a circle right through the table. “It’s settled.”

Tears sprang to Loki’s eyes and Thor thought he heard his own fragile heart shatter again at the sight of it.

“I also thought, maybe—” Loki hesitated and then forged ahead as tears began to tumble down his cheeks, his lips trembling. “If you don’t hate me, we might give us another try?”

He looked so unsure, so delicate sitting across the table with tendrils of hair framing his face, his eyes soft and round, blurred by the tears that filled his beautiful, beautiful eyes. Or maybe that was just the tears in Thor’s eyes. 

He reached out and took both his brother’s hands in his own, squeezing them with as much warmth as he could put into such a small gesture. 

“You idiot,” he said gently. “You absolute moron. There’s nothing I want more on this earth.”

Relief flooded Loki’s features and he began to cry in earnest. It all came out at once; the lonely nights, the TV dinners lying on the barren floor of a new apartment, the staggering sense of loss that never quite went away. 

When they left the shop to pick up Astrid, Thor gathered his brother to him and held him close, his own sense of relief washing over him like a tidal wave. They were going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay. 

A glint of metal caught his eye and he reached for it. Loki sniffed and let him. It was a ring. Plain and simple, on a chain and much too large for Loki’s fingers.

“I thought I lost this,” he marveled.

Loki smiled a little. “Entirely possible, but no. I swiped it when I left.”

“Lokes, I looked for this for months!” Thor exclaimed. 

Loki just lifted his shoulders noncommittally, but his eyes gleamed. _God,_ Thor had missed him. He pressed a firm kiss to the top of his brother’s head and felt the jagged pieces of his life begin to fall back into place.

They stood together as the bus pulled up into the school parking lot, Loki pressed against Thor’s side, Thor’s arm draped around his shoulders. Loki burst into tears all over again when Astrid hopped off the bus and sprinted to meet them. He dropped to his knees to catch her in a hug.

It just felt different this time knowing they would all be going back to the house together. On impulse, Thor leaned over and caught his ex husband in a gentle kiss. It made Loki cry harder, but they were good tears. 

“Is daddy okay?” Astrid asked, frowning up at Loki worriedly. 

Thor chuckled and took her other hand. “I think he’s going to be just fine, sweetheart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I subsist only on the kind words of readers. Follow me [here.](https://twitter.com/saltierbitch)


	4. Book Store: These Bones Of Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: spooky-ish autumn bookstore meet cute
> 
> My own prompt because I can. This is not my usual style because what can I say, a bitch was bored. I decided to play with both style and content here because like, growth as a creator or something like that....
> 
> Wrote this while listening to [Cry Baby by Neighborhood](https://open.spotify.com/track/0EfsDEYaSjGYd66Pr881nq?si=NQhIr_VNRcuR-eC5i97iyA) if you feel so inclined. 
> 
> Happy reading!

This is his life now—the bare bones of a tiny space downtown that he breathes life into each and every day. Every morning he brews himself a sleepy cup of coffee and stumbles down the stairs to unlock the ancient door and coax the even older hardware into submission so as to allow customers inside. The sun rises every morning in the same place and sets just the same. It’s quiet and predictable and safe here, all the things Loki would never have thought he’d come to want in a million years. It’s not an open freeway, and it’s not a string of lovers, it’s not an ex-friend’s couch, and it’s not the uncomfortable rocking of the night train either. 

It’s a studio apartment just big enough for the essentials and below, a tiny book shop.

The shop looks best in the thinned out light of the evening. The rich, warm wood practically glows in the golden wash from the sinking sun as little spirals of dust curl lazily through the air. It smells old inside, like a cabin that has been closed up for the winter and retains the smell of the earth and the snow that encased it in solitude for months and months. As if it could return to the earth and belong to her as easily as if she’d born it herself. 

But mother earth did not bear the shop into being, that’s Loki’s realm and he loves the shop like a mother loves her child. Fiercely and sternly, but tenderly and unconditionally as well. He is the only one who works here and that suits him fine. He likes the solitude, he likes the way he can run his fingers along the spines of his books and feel something like pride swell in his chest. He worked hard to get here, you see, and while the shop is small, it is his and his alone.

“You look like you need a pick me up,” a voice like creaking timber cuts through the muted silence. 

It’s a familiar voice, one that he has grown immensely fond of for reasons he prefers to keep to himself for now. He enjoys it regardless and straightens in his worn, wooden stool. 

Thor is a regular. If he had to describe him Loki would probably liken him to one of the giant redwood trees from the national forest he visited years ago. Strong, and tall, and wise. He looks like he always does, half buried behind a mane of blonde hair and a giant red scarf that looks like somebody knitted it for him. A battered denim jacket hangs from his shoulders to protect him from the cold and a sturdy set of working boots fall heavily on the ancient floors. They’re shoes that really have no business in the busy urban streets of the city but Thor seems to insist on them.

Then there’s his eyes, a pair of bright blue eyes that seem to crackle with energy above cheeks that have been permanently marked by the sun. Thor is as much a child of the day as Loki is a child of the seamless grey that lingers between dusk and night. 

“How did you know?” Loki asks him, smiling and feeling the drowsiness of the afternoon begin to lift. Thor has that effect on him. 

Thor’s mouth is hidden but his smile is evident as he passes over a worn travel mug. “A wild guess. How does green tea with lemon and lavender sound today?”

“Divine,” Loki says. 

The mug is warm and familiar in his hands. It’s the same one Thor brings to him every afternoon and collects before he leaves at closing. He is one of those types who uses the same things over and over again until they can’t be used any longer, not out of some elevated sense of worldly awareness, but because that’s who he has always been. Loki curls his fingers around the mug and lets out a sigh. Thor looks pleased. 

This is about the extent of their interactions, although they have been dancing these motions for over a year now. Loki ponders the broadness of Thor’s shoulders as they disappear between the shelves, disrupting the lazy swirls of dust in their path as he vanishes to the little corner in the back that he is so fond of. He is as steady and reliable as the sea, and in many ways he is the final touch that makes everything in this little shop feel complete. 

Loki enjoys the soothing scent of the tea a little while longer as Thor’s presence melts into the air, warming the spaces the waning sunlight would have left to cool. It is fully dark when Loki sets about his evening chores that will prepare the shop for closing. Unlike Thor, he is wearing soft shoes that make no sound against the floors as he travels across them to clamber up the ladder that rises to the top of the closest shelf. 

Dust may linger in the air for there is nothing he can do about that, but he will not abide it on his shelves, much less along the pages of his books. It doesn’t take him long. He is practiced and the books gleam easily beneath particles that have barely settled since last night’s routine. Their softness mocks him at times as they do tonight, safe and silent where they sit in their perfectly ordered manner, alphabetical by author, organized by genre. 

Loki’s life had once been utter chaos, the kind of life that takes a toll on even the brightest and most resilient of souls. He doesn’t like to think too deeply on it, there are demons there he’s not ready to fight, but there are times when he misses the sharp, clear smell of danger in his nostrils and the roar of the wind in his ears. 

But chaos is never far from him, for he is her favorite child. She comes for him in subtler things now, under cover of night to torment his thoughts and plague his dreams if he does, indeed, fall asleep. She reminds him of the things he would rather not remember and chases them into the daylight where she might send him spiraling into a panic at the most inconvenient of times. 

He’s learning to control it, now, to recognize the demons for what they are. Even the quickest learners have their weak spots. This is his. 

The shadows deepen in their sinister way and he turns the shop sign around and locks the door. Thor is late to leave tonight. Loki can’t help but allow a fond smile to escape him. Reliable as he is, Thor is also a slave to his passion for things, a voracious reader and student in his own right, although Loki is somewhat certain Thor is not traditionally schooled. There are few people who can walk into the shop that Loki trusts to handle his precious books and yet Thor has always taken the utmost care with them without needing to be told. He handles them in much the same way Loki does: reverently, like the timeless records of history and story that they are. For that, Loki is very fond of him.

He can just see the light pouring from the back of the shop, evidence of the lights Thor will have turned on to read in the lack of sunlight. It doesn’t happen often, Thor losing himself so deeply that he forgets the time, but Loki almost wishes it would happen more often if only to see him for a little while longer. 

He is taking off his apron when Thor’s harried steps emerge in the silence. 

“I’m so sorry, forgive me,” Thor says and he looks positively devastated. “I lost the time and I’ve kept you.”

“Yes, you’ve been terribly inconvenient,” Loki says dryly, lifting a brow in jest. “I’ve been closed all of three minutes.”

Thor’s sun kissed cheeks darken beneath the sarcasm and it takes Loki a moment to understand that it’s not his sarcasm that caused it. 

“It’s unusual for you to be lost for words,” he remarks, a little gentler. “If you need me to order another book for you, I assure you, it’s no trouble.”

Thor’s blue eyes are like a crackling fire against the coolness surrounding them, bright and intense. “Do you like wine?” 

Loki blinks at him. “I do.”

Thor nods, more to himself than to Loki. “There is a rooftop bar just down the street that is open late, would you like to join me tonight?”

The question is a long time coming and Loki is surprised it hasn’t come earlier. His chest flutters anyway. Somehow between the tea and the quiet stacks of books Thor has wedged himself between the armored slats of Loki’s heart and settled there—it feels almost natural that this is where they’ve ended up.

“That depends, is this a date?” Loki asks, meeting his gaze and letting the smile play along his lips. 

“If you would let it be, then yes,” Thor says hopefully.

“Good,” is all Loki says. 

He turns to retrieve a soft, well-loved jacket from its place along the wall behind him. Thor waits patiently as he locks the shop and leaves it there to glow, warm and constant in the wet chill of the city’s autumn night. 

Loki finds Thor’s hand and twines their fingers together and they slide into place as easily as if they were meant to be. They walk side by side like that, comfortable as they have always been since the day Thor found the shop, like two sides of the same weathered coin. 

Chaos breathes a sigh down the back of Loki’s neck and maybe it’s just the breeze but the thrill that comes with it is undeniable. This time, instead of driving him into a corner and forcing the breath from his lungs it raises the hairs along his arms and races down his spine and whispers in his ear:

_Go on, darling. Live._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scream with me into the void on [twitter](https://twitter.com/saltierbitch).


	5. Vampires: Nightmares and Loneliness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: vampires
> 
> I'm feeling the spooky vibes EARLY this year. Guess that's what happens when you listen to Evanescence in August. Can't believe I'm writing VAMPIRE FIC in the year of our lord 2k19. 
> 
> Anyway, feel free to read while listening to [Like You by Evanescence](https://open.spotify.com/track/21ceHLJfgyO9703AlzM4DU?si=uZxv3FGUTF-HvQi-qJeBgA) to match vibes if you feel like it. :) 
> 
> Please enjoy this odd little take on vampires!

It’s raining. No, actually, it’s fucking pouring and his beaten rain jacket does little to keep him from being anything but a drowned sewer rat. Thor doesn’t care. It’s hard to care when all it does is add to the inconvenience of everything else that’s currently happening. 

His hand slips and the wire cutters drop to the ground. He swears and picks it up, blinking the damp from his eyes and squinting back through the dark at the mess of wires in front of him. If only he’d been the one to install the goddamn system he could have been inside already but no, Loki only picked the most difficult of houses and by that, it meant he only picked the rich houses. The ones Thor wouldn’t have been allowed inside, even in a uniform and sporting an uncharacteristically sunny smile. 

Turns out people don’t really trust an ex-con and fewer trust ones with a vampire in their bloodline. Not that it’s genetic, but people are idiots, and rich ones most of all. 

Thor plucks the correct wire from the tangled mess and snips it with a practiced movement. There’s no sound to indicate he’s done his job, but that’s kind of the point. Robbing the rich is not hard if you know what you’re doing and Thor does—at the very least he knows how to work the security systems he installs during the day when Loki is shut away in his basement room, sleeping like the great big bat he is while Thor scrambles to do things that normal people do, like pay bills because that’s what he is. Fucking normal. 

Not that it’s his choice. 

He _wants_ to be like Loki. More accurately, he wants to be with him. There isn’t a cure for what his brother is, so it’s kind of a one-way solution. 

But convincing Loki to do it is near impossible. 

The carpet muffles his landing as he slips in the window and lands on his toes the way he always does. Carpet makes it too easy. He’s been hoping for a challenge, but apparently it’ll be a quick night. 

The house is pitch dark but he slides a set of goggles he nicked from their last hit over his eyes. It’s military grade. Night vision, thermal recognition, and even bluetooth if he feels so inclined. The gun feels heavier against his ribs somehow as he plucks his way down the wide, silent hall, a thick hunting knife pressing against his calf as he moves. He can almost watch as his breath is swallowed by the thickness of the carpet. He is leaving a very wet trail behind him, but it won’t matter in a few minutes anyway. 

Loki is at the door when he gets to the kitchen. Thor could lie and say he trusts his brother, but he doesn’t. If he’s honest with himself, he never has. Maybe once, a long time ago he may have trusted that his brother had some shred of decency in him—a sliver of compassion behind those perpetually narrowed, calculating eyes, maybe—but there isn’t much evidence to the contrary. Ever since he turned he has gotten farther and farther away. They can stand next to each other and they might as well be on opposite sides of the world.

It hurts, but it does nothing to change the fact that he’s Thor’s only soft spot.

Thor speaks a few words to allow him into the house and Loki sweeps inside, somehow managing to look otherworldly even as the water sloughs off him in sheets. 

Loki greets him with dry humor. Something about taking his time and how he would catch a chill.

Thor almost believes him, a concerned older brother by habit first and foremost. Loki can’t catch a chill, he’s undead, but then his brother doesn’t look good right now even by undead standards. There’s a certain surreal quality to vampires, as if the living look at them through blurred glass, unable to focus on any one feature well enough to get a clear picture. But Thor can see his brother clearly tonight. It’s not a good sign.

He thinks about saying something, but he doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter anyway, Loki is already walking away, making no sound as he moves through the air. He leaves a chill as he passes Thor, raising the hairs along his arms and making him shudder. The thing is, he does all this because, for better or worse, he loves his brother with every fibre of his being. From his skin down to his bones, he loves him. Loki is the air he breathes and he’ll live and die as he caves to his every whim. 

But that seems to be enough, even though he’s bone tired. Every inch of him is screaming for rest. His joints ache, his muscles protest, and his eyes strain with every passing moment he has to spend conscious. But Loki hasn’t eaten anything substantial recently and Thor hasn’t had a shift near a hospital or a blood bank in weeks. It’s this or watch as Loki’s skin begin to grey and the hollows of his eyes begin to bruise a deep, sleepless purple. 

He’s let it go for too long before and he will never let it happen again. 

He skims the house as he waits, pocketing valuables and snooping around the house. Earrings. Watches. Technology. Little things. They don’t want for much and if too many things get stolen it attracts suspicion. 

Ice creeps up his ankles and slides along his calves. 

“That was fast,” he murmurs, bending to inspect a vintage looking clock that might be worth something. 

“Efficiency is everything, dear brother,” Loki’s response is light. 

His voice is melodic now. Thor has always thought so, but now even strangers notice it. It’s smooth and lilting, rolling over the sounds of words the way a river tumbles over stones that have lined its path for centuries.

Thor looks at his brother tiredly. Even in his near-delirious state he can see the evenness of his skin, cool to touch and back in that vague, unfocused state. Something relaxes in Thor’s shoulders.

He doesn’t have to say anything for Loki to follow him out into the deluge. Loki instantly transforms and flits away into the darkness. Thor watches him go until he’s lost to the night. He won’t be home until morning. Loki’s only freedom lies in the shadows from now into eternity and he takes to it like it was made for him.

Home for them is not a mansion by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still too much space for two people. 

It’s especially too much space for one person. 

Thor feels the loneliness creep back into his body as he steps inside. It smells of ancient wood, sage, and incense, the pungent remains of Loki’s spells and general tinkering. His brother has always loved to play with the otherworldly and it stands to reason that he would eventually end up a part of it.

The air is cool but not unpleasant as Thor sheds his waterlogged clothing and snatches a soft, overworn hoodie from the rack. He sinks into his bed alone and tries to ignore the breathless weight of loneliness.

He falls asleep to memories of Loki. 

He doesn’t wake when his skin goes cold and the room gets darker. 

He doesn’t wake when the mattress sinks beside him and cool lips press to his cheek. 

He doesn’t hear the words his brother speaks into his ear—words he will remember later and wonder if he dreamed them.

*

Loki gazes down at his brother with a softness he will never show him awake.

Thor is buried in a thick sweatshirt and surrounded by threadbare sheets, dead to the world, deep within sleep’s clutches now that she has finally found him. It’s exactly where Loki wants him tonight. He almost swears his still, dead heart clenches anxiously beneath brittle bones for what he is about to do.

Thor has always been the unselfish one between them. He sacrifices everything just to keep them together in this shell they’ve been calling a life and Loki knows it. The distance between them has all but killed him the last few months, but spellwork takes time and what Loki has been working on is complicated.

Thor struggles, he’s not unaware. But he would rather he struggle than give him hope for something that might not work. It’s taken him months to get it right, but his patience has paid off and he’s certain now. His own transformation had been unexpected and the most painful thing he’d ever experienced. 

He would go through it again before he allowed Thor to know the pain of it. His brother has suffered enough.

With swift, steady movements he takes a small bottle and unstoppers it and lets it drip into his brother’s mouth, making sure he swallows it.

He brushes his fingers along his brother’s cheek and leans down to kiss him and breathe the warmth he finds there, one last time before it’s gone.

It’s quick for a decision so final, the meeting of razor sharp teeth and flesh. For a terrifying instant, Thor goes rigid and he thinks he must have miscalculated. But he goes limp the next moment and begins to change.

Loki sits guard over him all night. It’s his turn to protect Thor from all the things he cannot fight. He is like that for hours. Still and silent as stone, watching and waiting as Thor’s breath slows and eventually stills. 

When dawn breaks, it is complete. And when Thor opens his eyes he already knows what Loki has done. 

Loki smiles a little and when Thor surges up to kiss him he feels a release he hadn't known he needed. 

This is how forever should begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am available for further comment and screaming about everything life related on [twitter](https://twitter.com/saltierbitch).


	6. Demons and Monster Hunters: Sad Eyed Bad Guys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: monster hunter falls in love with a demon.
> 
> Music recommendation if you're as much _that_ person as I am: [Ghost by Halsey](https://open.spotify.com/track/2RQl5QH5Bb19baMNRJde28?si=4FoVX-tcSnSHp8_GMaGZPw).
> 
> More spooky times content for you all because monsters and demons are my first love, baby! Urban fantasy is the first genre I truly loved with all my heart so this one is a little more special to me than the rest. 
> 
> I hope you are all enjoying these little one-shots as much as I am!

Thor crouched on the railing of the rickety fire escape and finished the last of his cigarette before dropping it over the edge and watching it fall down into the wet alley below. He had planned on dipping into the little diner down the street and indulging in a cheeseburger and fries, possibly a milkshake if he still had change leftover from last week's pay. 

Too bad he forgot he spent the money on extra cigarettes in a moment of weakness yesterday. He’d been trying to quit, really, but he couldn’t help the extra stress. He’d even taken a dirty job tonight. It had been exactly the kind of sloppy hunting he didn’t want, but hell, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Now, instead of being broke and hungry, he was broke, hungry, tired, _and_ he smelled like bar fight blood. 

He flipped open the box of cigarettes, considered, then shrugged and lit up another.

Acrid smoke curled around him as the shadows stretched long in the alley, lit by the dying yellow wash of light from the leaning street lamp at the end of the street. It provided some protection from shadow monsters, but only barely, which was what he was banking on. He wasn’t sitting up here to brood like fucking batman, he was hoping to catch a glimpse of a friend. 

A friend who was _late_, he noted with a glance at the smashed face of his watch. 

He let a stream of smoke out through his nose and scratched at his neck absently with the blade of a large, serrated hunting knife that he took with him everywhere. It was a gift from his friend Steve, so to speak. Technically he’d stolen it from evidence, but Steve had courteously turned a blind eye for him while on shift. It was handy to have a friend on the force and Steve was what you’d call a true chaotic good—one of those messy entities that followed his own rules but, lucky for the world, happened to have a moral compass that was fixed (mostly) due north. 

The knife itself had a black, wicked looking blade that glittered with the faintest blue glow, the tell tale mark of something made on the _Otherside_. It looked like it should have had special powers or something, but it was just an ordinary knife, the only thing separating it from any old knife from Walmart was the fact that it could pierce the shadows and pin them where they stood if he were so inclined. 

A flicker in the darkness caught his eye to his right and his pulse spiked. He was off the railing in a flash, landing in a crouch and making the rusting metal screech with the impact. He raised the knife, peering into the shadows.

“My, aren’t we jumpy tonight?” the edges of the shadow curled in, not dissimilar to the smoke from his cigarette. 

He scowled.

“With reason,” he lowered the weapon. “You know better than to sneak up on me like that.”

“What, are you going to stab me?” the shadow chuckled. “Please. Don’t make promises you don’t plan to keep.”

“I’m not promising anything,” Thor said sulkily, plucking the cigarette from his lips and turning back to the ledge, leaning over it this time. 

Fucking demons. Chaos mongers and mischievous imps, all of them. He’d met Loki on a hunt a few months ago and hell, the stupid demon had imprinted on him or some shit because now he couldn’t get rid of him. Well, he called him a _him_ because Loki liked to manifest as a human male, not because he was one.

When Thor asked him why he took the form he did, Loki simply said he thought it seemed like the shape Thor would find most pleasing and left it at that which was annoying, endearing, and frankly, uncomfortably keen of him. 

More black smoke curled along the rusting fire escape and formed into something more corporeal, large green eyes suspended within the infinite darkness, unblinking, harrowing if you weren’t used to them. Thor kind of liked them.

“Why are you late, anyway?” Thor asked him. “I finished up half an hour ago.”

“Yes, I know,” Loki said. 

When he didn’t elaborate, Thor grumbled. “Fucking demons…”

Loki pretended to yawn, showing off a giant, shadowy maw that stretched open to display a glittering row of black teeth that had been carefully sharpened. It was as much a threat as it was a bratty display of boredom.

“I can’t believe you’re already finished,” Loki complained. “Find another mark.”

Thor shot him an irritable look. “You’re a child. You know what the jobs are like for me lately.”

“We both know you’re just ignoring what you could be doing,” Loki said delicately. “Your true potential lies in—”

“No,” Thor waved a haphazard hand and it passed through Loki’s smokey shoulder, it sent a shock of cold across his skin.

He yanked it back quickly while Loki erupted into a deep, rattling laugh. Thor sighed and slumped to sit down, resting his forehead against the bars. His stomach growled and the emptiness somehow made him want to cry. He didn’t, but he wanted to. 

Instead he sighed deeply and asked—

“What am I gonna do, Lokes?” 

Loki was busy stretching out along everything he could touch, spiraling lazily down the ladder and along the rail above Thor’s head. 

“About what?” Loki asked. 

He dodged the question at the last second. “For dinner.”

“Liar.”

Thor kicked a leg out dispiritedly. “Nah, forget it. I don’t even know why I’m asking you.”

“Because you’re a loner and an outcast,” Loki answered easily. “Not to mention socially inept so you don’t have friends—”

“Hey!” 

Loki fluttered with his strange humor and craned part of himself around until he was in front of Thor’s face. It was really weird to stare into the disembodied green eyeballs, but they comforted him in their strangeness. 

“You’re asking a demon for advice because, face it, I’m all you’ve got,” Loki said.

He couldn’t argue with that.

“Alright, you shark-toothed fuck, do you have actual advice for me or are you just gonna keep taking a piss?” Thor said without heat, a smile creeping into the corners of his mouth. “Because I’ll hang around for both, but one might actually get you stabbed.”

“Promise?” Loki deadpanned.

Thor hugged the bars and gazed at him. “So?”

Loki hummed and it came out in a chatter of sorts as he rescinded the smoke of his form and became something much more solid next to him. The demon’s preferred human form was beautiful; reedy and long-limbed with soft, dark hair that fell in waves around his face. His eyes remained their vivid green, unblinking in the darkness. Even in this form he managed to look otherworldly and unsettling.

Then again, Thor had never been one to shy away from the strange or unnatural, in fact he seemed to gravitate towards it. Loki seemed to be the only sentient being on Earth or otherwise that wanted to stick around and force his company on him, regardless of how much of an ass he knew he could be. Thor felt a surge of affection for him.

“You’re very strange,” Loki remarked. 

“Yeah, that’s what my kindergarten report card said,” Thor snorted. He picked at a hole in the sleeve of his jacket. “But really though,” he added seriously. “What am I gonna do? I can’t go the rest of my life doing this.”

Loki looked at him curiously. “I’d assume you’ll do what most mortals like you do.”

“Oh yeah? Which is what?”

“Work yourself to death. You’ll scramble around the same patch of earth trying to survive until your soul is thin and battered, and then return to the earth,” Loki said it all as calmly as if it were the weather report in San Francisco. 

Thor barked an incredulous laugh. “What?”

“Don’t worry about being alone though,” Loki added helpfully. “Most humans pass to the _Otherside_ alone.”

They shouldn't have, but Loki's words stung.

Thor stared at him for a long moment and felt an old, deep anger flare within him, “Woooow, not helpful. First of all, that’s not advice that’s just straight bullshit and second, I give it an F.”

“What?” Loki looked taken aback by his anger.

“F,” Thor repeated defensively, rising to stomp irritably down the fire escape. “It’s a grading system we mortals use to place value on our accomplishments. It’s supposed to motivate us to do better so maybe next time you can be less of a complete and utter _asshole_ about it, hm? Maybe!” He swung off the end of the ladder and let it rise back up above him with a clang. “F is for failure! F is for _fuck off._”

He stalked down the street, brandishing the knife as he yelled at his friend. The street light finally sputtered and died out, plunging him into darkness. He yelled at that too. Street lamps should be upkept if people like him were still paying their goddamned taxes. If he was going to have to dumpster dive for his dinner, the least they could do was keep the lights up and running. 

Normally this kind of darkness would have had the shadows jumping at a chance to swarm him in the lack of light, but they held themselves at bay tonight. It was either his stream of endless ranting or the fact that he was wielding the knife haphazardly in his anger. Maybe he was overreacting—well, not maybe, he _was_ overreacting—but Loki had managed to flay him open and stab him directly in the heart of his deepest insecurity. How could he not get defensive? 

He scowled as he clambered up into his house, hiking up another fire escape and into the window of the little apartment that nobody else wanted on account of it being haunted. He wasn’t technically renting it so much as squatting in it, but he hadn’t been kicked out yet. At six months it was the longest he’d managed to stay in any one place. 

A mattress lay in the corner on the floor of the large living room along with a couple other pieces of furniture. A desk with a chair he’d swiped from a dumpster up town. The classic futon. A lot of candles in the event the power went out, which was frequently. It was out at the moment, too, so he stripped and showered in the dark, scrubbing harshly to remove the stink of alcohol and blood from his skin. He would have loved to burn his clothes too, but he couldn’t afford that. A double wash at the laundromat would have to do. 

He was toweling off his hair when he felt the air shift. A quick look into his bedroom confirmed it was Loki. Again. 

“I’m not in the mood for you,” Thor snapped at him, tucking the towel around his waist. 

He stalked past him and dug in the closet for a clean shirt. He wasn’t sure if Loki understood nuance of human emotions, but he definitely understood enough to steer clear when things got heated. The last time Thor yelled at him he disappeared for a week. 

“I’m sorry,” Loki said. He sounded like he was testing the phrase for the first time, a little tentative and awkward in his mouth. 

Thor yanked a shirt over his head and turned to look at him suspiciously. “You don’t even know what that means. Where’d you learn that, hm?”

Loki raised his brows. “I know more than you give me credit for.”

“Of course, my bad. Since you’re so smart, why don’t you tell me why I’m mad at you. Enlighten me!” Thor shoved his legs into a pair of well-worn sleep pants and stalked into the bathroom to brush his teeth. 

Loki didn't answer immediately, but he was on his feet the second Thor walked back in the room. 

“Still here, are you?” he asked. 

“You’re mad because I’m right,” Loki told him flatly. “You’re terrified to be alone, but you’d rather be alone on your own terms than risk letting someone in. If your loneliness is your fault you can deal with that, but if somebody leaves you, it will confirm every one of your fears: that you’re not worth it.”

“You don’t know a goddamn thing about me,” Thor hissed and shouldered past him.

“Ask me to stay,” Loki said simply. 

Thor froze with his back turned. “What?”

“Ask me to stay,” Loki repeated slowly. 

His heart thundered loudly in his chest. When he didn’t respond, Loki came to him, stepping across the floor until he stood chest to chest with him. This close Thor could smell firewood and the dense musk of decaying leaves on him. 

Loki seemed to sense he was frozen and took matters into his own hands, bringing them up to caress Thor’s jawline, impossibly gentle and pleasantly cool. 

“Unless of course, I’ve misread everything and that’s not what you want?” he said softly, making Thor shiver. 

He felt a small, panicked noise escape him. All he wanted on this miserable, godforsaken planet was to keep this bizarre, _infuriating_ little demon in his life for as long as possible. For whatever reason, the thought of living his life without him seemed pointless and utterly void of joy.

"Aren't you the master of lies," Thor asked him thickly, trying to keep things light and failing. "Tell me what I want."

"You want me." 

“Then how do I make you stay?” Thor whispered. 

Loki smiled, wide and triumphant in the near blackness of the shrouded room and practically hissed—

_“I’m a demon, you fool. Kiss me.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feel free to drop by my [twitter](https://twitter.com/saltierbitch) if you'd like to say hi. Make sure to let me know if you found me on ao3!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Much love to you all and happy spooky times!!


	7. The Ninth: Necromancer & Cavalier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never thought I'd be writing CROSSOVER FIC, but here we are. 
> 
> I recently read [Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42036538-gideon-the-ninth) and I have had a major book hangover since. What a great universe. I've never been more pissed to return to this boring hellscape of an apocalypse we're calling 2020. Anyway, this is more a writing exercise for me than anything but I figured I'd toss it up here anyway just to document it. 
> 
> *****No spoilers for the book are in here other than visual shit and a couple of social structures unique to the world.*****
> 
> Enjoy!

The training barracks were less barracks and more holes that had been blown in the wall with dynamite. The rock had then been chipped away from the inside to make enough space for two men stacked on top of one another to stand erect as the pillars that were scattered throughout to prevent collapse. There had been no attempt to smooth anything over and the humid air collected along the many rough-hewn edges and dripped lazily from the ceiling in the same torpid manner that everything else in the house seemed to embody. 

Thor held the rapier at the proper height, frozen in position as sweat ran down his back in little rivulets. Heat crept along his muscles, seeping down from his shoulder and along his trembling arm and making him wonder for the umpteenth time if he’d made the wrong decision to train as a cavalier. His situation was such that he could have been anything—a necromancer, a diplomat, he could have even been nothing and sat at the feet of the heads of house, a loyal subject with no particular aspirations other than to attend prayers and be a model citizen of the ninth. 

And yet. 

“Not your typical abysmal work,” said Heimdall in a voice that managed to snap like a whip along the cavern walls. “We may make a passable cavalier out of you yet.”

Heimdall was the swordmaster of the ninth, ageless and as irascible as one might expect from somebody who had lived to see as many lifetimes. He wasn’t particularly tall, but what he lacked in height he made up for in sheer broad muscle. Thor knew he was old, but exactly how old had always eluded him no matter how many times he asked, and he’d asked _many_ times. Heimdall’s ageless skin and agile joints were no more useful as indications. 

Thor struggled to keep his eyes focused on an invisible target as Heimdall came to stand in front of him, hands behind his back. His hair was carefully sectioned into meticulous ropes that he kept tied back in a heavy tail, and he had eyes that burned like the lamps that flickered along the walls, like the sun he had only ever heard rumors of. Sun was hard to come by when you lived this deep. The old man had trained Thor relentlessly ever since he decided to become a cavalier and his patience with him, which was thin to begin with, was now nonexistent. 

“Attack!” came the command.

Thor lunged forward out of his stance, attempting the proper form and felt rather than saw that he’d failed even before Heimdall’s feet kicked his own out from beneath him. The rapier went flinging into the darkness where it landed with a clatter. Thor landed flat on his back.

“Then again, maybe you are doomed,” said Heimdall, leaning over him with an impervious expression.

Thor glared up at him from the floor, breathing hard. “Rapiers are stupid. They’re too light and if I _must_ fight with them, I should be able to fight with two of them from a less stupid stance.”

“They are the traditional weapon of the cavalier,” Heimdall countered, turning away without offering to help him up. “And you will either learn to deal with it or you will have to get used to calling the ninth home.”

Thor pushed his way up onto the heels of his hands and scowled at his teacher’s back. Dangling his ticket off-world in front of his face as motivation was a low blow, but a familiar one that Heimdall loved to beat him over the head with. Thor could think of nothing better than leaving the ninth for something more exciting, but his only way off was to become the cavalier of a necromancer. That and the promise of a less dank, less glum environment was the only reason he suffered through day after day of training with the dumbest form of sword possible. 

“How is he doing?” 

Speak of the devil. His necromancer had entered at some point unbeknownst to him and now emerged from the perpetual shadows like the corporeal version of them. Loki was swathed in yards of black cloak that obscured the traditional bone armor Thor knew he wore around his chest and along the sides of his thighs. Loki himself resembled a kind of giant undead bat, reedy and thin with a sharp face like knives that came to a single point in the middle of his face. He looked a little more drawn than usual, which meant he would be in one hell of a mood. Not that it was anything new, Loki had been in a mood the day he was born.

Thor got to his feet, his muscles stiffening as they cooled from practice. He retrieved the rapier from the darkness at the edge of the room and brought it back to where Heimdall kept his plethora of swords in a rack along the wall. He could hear them talking about him, making no effort to keep their voices low despite the fact they were always talking shit. Thor tuned it out automatically, by now fully acquainted with being put down for various reasons depending on the day. He didn’t care. He hated everybody on this rock, in, on, and around it. One day he would leave, and he would only ever have to deal with his jackass of a necromancer instead of a whole planet of jackasses. The thought made him pause and entertain the thought with a certain sense of dreaminess. 

“His form is adequate,” Heimdall was saying, startling him out of his reverie where he’d been slicing his way out of the ninth with a pair of heavy shortswords.

“Adequate? My god, is that a compliment?” he asked, feigning surprise and strolling over, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Heimdall, you flatter me.”

“Adequate hardly means proficient,” said Loki brazenly, his thin, bloodless lips pressed into a sharp line across his face.

“Your technique is passable,” Heimdall said calmly. “Which means you’d better hope nobody takes a closer look.”

Thor made a rude gesture. “Fuck you, I’m passable, which means I’m getting out of here. That’s all I care about.”

“Yes, why wouldn’t you care about centuries of history and the sacred duty of a cavalier,” drawled Loki. “God forbid you show a modicum of respect for the house that raised you.”

“Raised is a strong word for it,” Thor tipped his hand back and forth ambivalently. “And the way I see it, you’re stuck with me either way.”

Loki’s face went carefully blank. Heimdall made a noise in the back of his throat, the one that he made whenever he was tired of a conversation and likely to start swinging if he was forced to endure much more. 

“I’ll see you at dinner, partner,” Thor said cheerfully, giving Loki a sloppy salute and walking out of the room before either of them had a chance to say anything. 

But when he reached the split in the path along the outside of the training rooms, he took the one that would lead him back to their quarters instead of the dining room. He wasn’t hungry, he was sweaty, dirty, and tired. His bones ached and his muscles threatened to lock up on him as he made his way up the stone stairs that would bring him to the quarters he shared with Loki. Cavaliers shared quarters with their necromancer traditionally, but it was a bit of a special case with him and Loki because they were actually siblings and had shared quarters since they were small. It just so happened that Loki decided to become a necromancer and Thor decided to capitalize on that. 

He took a brutally cold dunk beneath the harsh, spitting spray of their shower and slid into the worn clothes he usually wore to sleep. His stomach complained about the lack of food, but he ignored it. It would be regrettable in the morning, but that was something he could deal with tomorrow. 

Teeth cleaned, face washed, and more tired than the undead, he was about to get into bed and pass into blissful unconsciousness when he felt the shadows move. 

He sighed. “What.”

“Heimdall says you’re ready,” Loki materialised from the blackness. 

Thor wished he would melt right back into the darkness, but he said instead, “Yes, I heard. I don’t know if you remember, but I do have ears. I even participated in the conversation, if you recall.”

“You’re not listening to me,” snapped Loki, his eyes flashing. In private his brother’s guard melted away just enough that he was able to discern the multitudes of expression beneath. 

“Okay, what?”

“I’m saying we’re leaving in the morning,” Loki said. “So gather your _things_.”

He said _things_ as if Thor did not own anything worth bringing on an intergalactic trip to fight for the emperor. He was only mostly correct.

“Can I bring my short swords?”

“No.” 

Loki glared at him and Thor gazed back expectantly, not backing down. They held it there for a moment before Loki relented a little. He always did in the safety of their own rooms. 

“Fine. But hide them. And you _will_ be wearing full ceremonial garb, face paint included, when we leave.”

“But—”

“If you’re going to be a cavalier, then act like a cavalier,” said Loki. “That includes the paint. It’s non-negotiable.”

Thor backed off then. He could see his brother crumbling a bit at the edges, just begging for something to cause it all to come crashing down. That was not to say Loki didn’t look that way all the time, but there were things you just knew intuitively as a sibling. 

“I’ll wear it,” he said quietly. 

Loki’s response was to sag. It wasn’t obvious, just the slightest downward tug on his body as if gravity had decided to punish him a little more strictly just now. His mouth tugged into a tiny frown, his shoulders tipped forward, and the bags beneath his eyes seemed to spread further down his cheeks. 

Thor watched him remove his traditional garb. He would leave his hair free and the bone earrings would remain in his ears, but the cloak and the armor came off. As tired as he was, Thor lay in bed looking at the ceiling as Loki took his own freezing shower and dressed for bed. 

He wondered if he was good enough to follow his brother to the front lines now. Resisting proper training had always been his schtick, but the truth was that he had put every ounce of his focus into it for a myriad of reasons, not least of which being the fact that Loki looked like a stiff breeze might snap him in half on a good day. He needed all the protection he could get if he was going to do this necromancer shit.

Thor threw the heavy blanket off his legs and got out of bed, his limbs protesting as he fetched a bag from his wardrobe and rummaged around in the back of the rotting wood structure for his short swords. He took a moment to unsheath them and admire the blades, sharpened to lethal perfection. They were a much more comfortable weight in his hands and he couldn’t resist making a couple of quick passes, slicing through the muggy, stagnant air with familiar ease. 

Yes. It was a good idea to bring them. God knows he would probably break the damn rapier sooner than later. Useless weaponry. He stowed the swords in the bottom of his bag wrapped in an old cloak that he’d long since outgrown. 

He didn’t have much else to pack. Some clothes that had been patched time and time again, and two new outfits that were in the traditional cavalier style. He would wear his boots. 

Loki was sitting on the edge of the bed when he was done. Even going to bed his brother was covered from neck to toe in black making him seem much smaller than he actually was, which in reality was only an inch or two shorter than Thor himself. Tonight he seemed to be folded in on himself with the focused intensity that he tended to get whenever he was working through a particularly complicated spell or a practice box. There had been times when Loki would shut himself in a training room for days before emerging victorious and half dead with little streams of blood dried along his nose and down along his cheeks from the corners of his eyes.

“You look like you just raised father from the dead,” Thor said lightly, going in with a mild joke to test the waters.

Last time he interrupted his brother when he was like this, Loki had conjured a skeleton and flung him across the room, sealed him in a cage of bones, and left him there for three days. Thor wasn’t keen to relive the experience. 

“What if I can’t do this,” asked Loki bluntly, his green eyes slightly out of focus as he stared into the stone floor. “I’ve trained all my life to be worthy, to be ready. But what if that’s not enough?”

“Hey,” Thor said. “Shut up. You’re Loki fucking Odinson and you’ve kicked everybody’s ass except for mine since the day you were born. Hell, you were raising skeletons before even Sif had a handle on it, and she’s the most accomplished necromancer we have below you. She’s very bitter about that, you know.”

Loki’s lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. “Yes, I know she is.”

“See?” Thor smiled and sat down heavily next to him, leaning his elbows into his knees. “You have nothing to be worried about. If the emperor can’t see you for what you have to offer, he’s an idiot.”

“Do not insult the emperor,” Loki’s words were clipped, but without heat. His tone shifted to a little more serious. “I’m glad you’re going with me.”

Thor looked at him and risked leaning over to loop an arm around his neck and pull him in close, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. 

“You can’t get rid of me, jackass,” he said fondly. 

Loki stayed in his embrace for the span of a breath and then extracted himself delicately and gave Thor his arm back. 

“Do not get soft on me the day before we leave,” he said, rising to his feet. “This isn’t going to be a fun adventure.”

“Says who?” Thor asked, tilting his head and waggling his brows. “You and me, alone on a spaceship for god knows how long?”

“I desperately wish you would try not to be such a barbarian all the time,” Loki said, but he leaned forward anyway and captured Thor’s lips in a soft kiss that lingered just a second longer than usual. “Now go to bed.”

Thor kissed him back and then obediently climbed into the sheets.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
